Le Sharpy & Joe Jog: Day 2: Oakhampton to Bath

Overview and Highlights:

- It's very hard to start anywhere but the rain, the endless westcountry rain, it started roughly 35 miles in, and continued for the next 70+, at times consistent, at times torrential, see the two videos below, they do not do justice to the absolute humidity level, and apologies for the profanity, it had started to grate after a while

- The team faced its first potential schism, firstly with an aggressive Sharpy finding displeasure with most things that Taylor did (or didn't) do during the day (see full list below), and then with Taylor (to explain but not excuse - cold and tired) heading for home and leaving Sharpy struggling up a hill - team has now reconciled

- One thing the rain did do was bring out the frogs and toads, which then got crushed on the roads, I saw a toad late in the day which not only allowed me to tick 'frog/toad' off my roadkill list , but also allowed me to finalise the Wind in the Willows complete set... also it means I'm only an adder away from nailing the entire Farthing Wood crew and an unlikely owl away from Captain Beaky and his whole merry band!

- Having gone to school in Bath (Taylor), I was somewhat skeptical at the description of a 'roughly flat finish', and my suspicious were confirmed when, running into our organiser Neal with 10 miles to go, he described the last 10 as 'rolling' - knowing a euphemism when I hear one, I was almost, but not quite, prepared for the 15% 2 mile slog up an unlit track to get to the hotel - passing various perfectly good guest houses on the way.

- After 10 hours in the saddle, 6-7 of which under the driving rain, the sun came out 5 miles from the hotel, and there was a perfect rainbow, some described it as beautiful, after so long in the rain and mentally scarred, we saw it more as Fortuna opening her valve in our direction from a great height

- Amongst all of the above, we got through 117 miles for our longest day so far, the entire team is now sitting with ice packs on various body parts, but overall it's been a good day

What we’ve learned:

- Music keeps you going (according to Taylor that is, Sharpy thinks it is cheating & antisocial, and especially annoying when Taylor has gone the wrong way) - at one point when I (Taylor) was at a low ebb, covered in water, into a headwind, with Sharpy mumbling incoherently about something else I had done wrong, I was close to defeat, but Extreme Ways by Moby came on the playlist and I thought, would Jason Bourne carry on? I should coco...

- Sharpy is a true gent - when Taylor had put his head down for home fearing hypothermia if waiting in the rain, he stayed with Kristina (another group member, to ensure she arrived home safely, it was inspiring!

- Farmers can actually be friendly... Only a day after being threatened with the dogs, a fella didn't throw us off his land as we tried to make lunch in the rain, he may well have felt sorry for us, and wondered what we were thinking.

- You can only last so long on one knee before the good knee joins the bad knee, leaving two bad knees

Daily Difficulty Rating:

MS - 8/10 - Pain, rain hypothermia, Taylor being a knob

JT - 7/10 - Would have been tough regardless, but the combination of apocalyptic weather, Sharpy telling me off every 5 miles and a swollen knee made it fairly unpleasant

Ways in which Taylor incurred the wroth of Sharp on day 2:

- Getting lost

- Going to fast

- Going to slow
- general 'faffing' in the morning and evening

- taking all the hangers in the hotel room

- not buying any chocolate milk

- flying up every hill enthusaisatically at max pace ('like a mountain goat'), despite Sharpy's advice to stay in the saddle and take each steadily

- not eating enough vegetables

- never working as a team (disputed by Taylor!)
- listening to music while cycling
- not knowing when we were stopping for lunch
- not making Sharpy a sandwich on earlier arrival at the above-mentioned lunch

- only filming Sharpy climbing up hills, ignoring the fact that he took the front for most of the flat and raced down every downhill

- trying to get Sharpy's trainers from the bus, but getting somebody else's which were size 13!

- not knowing enough about Ornithology - “you don’t know anything about birds of prey, you’ve proved it with your first sentence”

- borrowing his toothpaste
- not accepting the reason (given by Sharpy) he has a bad knee
- staying up late playing on the computer
- etc. etc. etc.